Hiyya bar Abba

Who was Hiyya bar Abba?

Hiyya bar Abba or Rabbi Hiyya was an amoraic sage of priestly descent of the latter Mishnaic period. Active in Tiberias, Hiyya was the primary compiler of the tosefta. He was the uncle of Abba Arika.

In the Jerusalem Talmud he is also called Ḥiyya bar Ba or Ḥiyya bar Wa; in both Talmuds he is frequently called merely R. Ḥiyya. Though a native of Babylon, where, perhaps, for a very short time he came under the influence of Samuel of Nehardea, he migrated to Palestine at a very early age. There he studied under Ḥanina and Joshua ben Levi, and came into very close contact with Simeon bar Laḳish. He is, moreover, known as a disciple of Rabbi Johanan, after whose death he and his friends Ammi and Assi were the recognized authorities on the Halakah in Palestine.

Ḥiyya was distinguished for the care with which he noted the sayings of his masters, and in questions of doubt as to the phraseology of a tradition the version of Ḥiyya was preferred. Though he was the author of many aggadot, he denounced every attempt to collect and commit them to writing, and upon seeing such a collection he cursed the hand that wrote it. His interest was centered in Halakhah. Together with Ammi and Assi, he formed a court of justice before which a certain woman named Tamar was tried. The sentence involved Ḥiyya and his associates in difficulty, and might have had disastrous results had not Abbahu promptly come to their assistance.